Chapter 5 APPROACHING THE BILLIONAIRE

Lola

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“Stop her!!” a man's voice thundered into the cool night's air, heavy footsteps slamming against the pavement as two masked men chased after me.

I was panting heavily, my bare feet scraping the gravel as I ran for my dear life.

We were heading down a busy street filled with stalls, pedestrians screaming and scrambling out of the way as the goons bumped into them.

I was breathless. My ankles and feet were throbbing. Traces of blood streaked down my forehead. Fresh bruises highlighted my jawlines. And my hair clung to my face, mixing with my sweat. So when I saw the popular Eden club up ahead, its loud music bursting out into the open, I staggered into it.

Everything up until this point was staged: the goons chasing me, the cuts and blood on my face. None of it was real. Jake and Jacob were the ones behind the mask, and Sky had given me the most believable makeover to make me look like a true damsel-in-distress.

Whenever Vincent Vale visited Eden, he always reserved a particular private room in the VVIP section, and that was going to be our meeting point. According to my findings, he was assigned a different stripper every time he visited, and Bree, his stripper for tonight, was just who I needed in order to beat security and gain access to his private room.

The plan was pretty simple. Find Bree, switch places with her, ‘coincidentally’ barge into his room. Then I'd play the terrified woman who had to steal the clothes of one of Eden’s strippers in order to get away from some bad goons. Oh, and then the fake goons would storm in, threatening to harm me. Vincent would take pity on me if he had a heart somewhere in that dark chest. He'd swoop in and become my knight in shining armour. The end. Mission accomplished.

I began to push myself through the hyper crowd around the performance area, casting a brief glance at the horny men of different ages, hollering excitedly as they sprayed $50 bills on the half-naked girls shaking their titties and asses in their faces even while being suspended from a friggin’ pole. 

I pulled my hoodie over my head, my wandering eyes landing on the part of the building labelled ‘VVIP area.’ 

I had to get up there, but I needed to find the stripper first if I were to make it past those angry-looking bodyguards guarding the entrance. 

My eyes swept through the club in search of her, and I saw a brunette woman in provocative clothes, making her way towards a room labeled ‘ladies only’. I caught a series of star-shaped tattoos at the back of her neck, and that was the confirmation I needed that she was Bree.

I hurried after her, closing the door as I quietly slipped in behind her. 

It was a cube-sized dress room, and luckily, she was the only one in it. 

Just as she turned around to see who had walked in, I quickly closed the space between us, striking the sensitive part of her neck with brutal force before she could successfully let out a scream.

“I'm so sorry,” I muttered half-heartedly as she slumped into my arms, gently guiding her towards the floor. 

I watched her slowly lose consciousness as I hastily took off my hoodie and pulled off my shorts. Then I stripped her of her clothes and threw on the strapless bra, mini flare skirt, and platform heels she previously had on.

By the time I was done, I looked like the star of an adult film. My butt cheek was on display, and the strapless bra barely held my boobs together because I was on a bustier side. But I didn't exactly care. I’d worn way worse.

I took Bree's hands and dragged her along the tiled floor, hiding her behind the large wardrobe. Then I grabbed a blanket from the chair, tossing it over her naked body. 

With that, I stepped out of the room and scurried towards the VVIP area, keeping my head down as I stylishly walked past the bodyguards. 

I hurried into the first room by my left, its crimson red lights blinding me for a second. I shut the door and pressed my chest against the wall in a way that my back was turned to him, ignoring the stench of cigarettes and expensive liquor hitting my nose as I waited for him to notice me. 

I had 15 minutes… just 15 minutes to do what I needed to and get the fuck out of here.

I counted in my head.

One.

Two.

Three…

“You're late,” a chilling voice echoed from behind me, forcing a practiced gasp out of my lips as my shoulders jerked. 

I spun around quickly, my back colliding with the switch on the wall behind me. White lights came on, and there he was in a neatly-pressed, longsleeved dress shirt. He was seated on a leather sofa at a corner of the room, laid back like he couldn't be bothered about a damn thing in the world, one leg crossed over the other as he held a lit cigarette between his fingers. 

There was also an unhealthy amount of untouched alcohol bottles on his table, like he had a strong desire to drown himself in them.

He lifted his slightly tipsy eyes slowly to me, and in that moment as our gaze locked, I could have sworn I saw something like recognition flash in his widened eyes. 

No… it was more like he'd seen a ghost.

He dropped the hand that held the cigarette and lowered his crossed leg to the floor, rising slowly from the sofa. He squinted his eyes in utter disbelief, a mixture of shock and tears shimmering in them. With lips parted open, he took me in carefully like he was studying a difficult chapter of a book. Meanwhile, I just stood there gawking at him, wondering how a man could look this gorgeous yet still exude such a masculine and confident aura.

Those photos I’d seen did him absolutely no justice. He looked wayyyyyy better in person.

He was six-foot-two-ish. His lips were thin and shaped like a heart. He had the sexiest eyes on God's green earth; a perfect shade of honey and dark chocolate. His chest and arms were so ripped, you could see it from how his shirt hugged him. And his off-black hair was sleeked back, a few strands falling over his face in a hot, messy way—it made him look like he belonged on the front cover of an entertainment magazine.

‘But why the hell did he have that expression on his face?’ I wondered as he continued to stare at me with those ghostly, pale eyes. 

I hadn't done anything yet, but it seemed like I'd already successfully grabbed his attention. 

Good start. I thought, only for his face to harden. 

“Strip,” he commanded, anger seething in his eyes.

“What?” My lips parted in surprise, drawing my brows together.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” he spat harshly, glaring at me. “I want to see those perky boobs underneath your clothes.”

I blinked, swallowing inaudibly.